Public Claims

issued in any amount. The consequence was that the title to land was passing to speculators, and the Treasury was being filled with worthless paper. The best justification of this measure was, as Benton says, that ten millions of paper on its way to the Land Office was arrested by this circular. When Congress met (December, 1836) it passed an act rescinding the specie circular, after a long and acrimonious debate. The bill was not sent to the President until the day before the close of the session, and he did not sign it, so that it did not become law. In the course of the debate there were abundant prophecies of coming trouble. Mr. Calhoun did not vote on the bill, and in giving his reasons said : " He believed the state of the currency was almost incurably bad, so that it was very doubtful whether the highest skill and wisdom could restore it to soundness, and it was destined at no distant day to undergo an entire revolution. An explosion he considered inevitable, and so much the greater the longer it should be delayed."